Germany: Thousands of immigrants could gain regular status

2022/07/15 Leave a comment

Of note, further change:

The German government is hoping to give over 130,000 migrants trapped in legal limbo the chance to stay permanently, as part of an overhaul of Germany’s immigration system.

Chancellor Olaf Scholz‘s government on Wednesday agreed on a package of reforms that will open the prospect of residency rights to people who have lived in Germany for more than five years with a so-called Duldung, or tolerance status.

“We are a diverse immigration country. Now we want to become a better integration country,”  Interior Minister Nancy Faeser, of Scholz’s center-left Social Democrat SPD, wrote on Twitter. “I want to actively shape migration and integration instead of reluctantly administering them as I have done for the past 16 years,” she continued in reference to the previous conservative government’s policies.

A Duldung is normally issued to people who have been refused asylum but who can’t return to their home country for various reasons: These might include the threat of war or arrest in their home country, pregnancy or serious illness, or because they are studying or in job training in Germany. Legally, however, they remain obliged to leave the country and live under the threat of deportation.

Asylum gray zone

A Duldung is only valid for a short time, and people can be granted the status several times in a row often with no prospect of being allowed to work. Under the new scheme, proposed by Faeser, people who have had a Duldung for five years  could be eligible for a one-year “opportunity residency” status, during which time they have to prove a willingness to integrate: which in practice would mean learning German and finding a job capable of securing their income.

Such migrants would have to meet certain conditions: Anyone convicted of a serious crime, applied for asylum under a false identity, or who had submitted multiple applications, would be barred from the option. There are exceptions to the criminal conviction rule: crimes that were punished with a low fine or in a young offenders’ court will be overlooked.

Karl Kopp, director for European affairs at the refugee rights organization Pro Asyl, said he has met many people caught in this legal limbo. “Imagine you have tolerance status, you have family, you have children in school here who speak fluent German, who grew up here,” he told DW. “And at some point all you want is a status that makes it clear that you belong to this country. All you want is for the uncertainty to stop.”

“Many others live with a concrete fear for years: The police are going to come to deport them,” he said. “This drains them of energy and causes a lot of suffering.”

Kopp also said he knew of many cases of people with tolerance status who have job training places, and their employers have to fight to allow them to stay in the country.

The government integration commissioner, Reem Alabali-Radovan, wrote on Twitter that the new legislation would be a bridge to a better life for around 135,000 people in Germany. “We are reshaping Germany as a modern immigration country. A first important step: With the right of residence, there will finally be fair prospects for all those who have been living here on a tolerated basis for 5+ years. We are also opening up access to integration courses for everyone.”

Opposition politicians have voiced criticism. Alexander Throm, domestic policy spokesman for the Christian Democratic Union (CDU), said that the government’s plans would create “massive incentives” for illegal immigration to Germany. “On top of that, the coalition is undermining asylum law with this initiative,” Throm told the RND news network.

“There has to be a difference between whether an asylum procedure ends with protection status or whether an asylum application is rejected,” he added. “But if a rejected application also leads to being allowed to stay in Germany permanently, then the asylum procedure itself becomes largely pointless.”

Green Party co-leader Omid Nouripour defended the measure, claiming that it would help ease Germany’s acute shortage of skilled workers. “We are opening new prospects for people,” he told the Funke media network. “Part of that is a modern immigration law based on a points system. For that reason, it’s right that this draft law will also consolidate regulations from the skilled labor immigration law.”

Baby steps towards integration

Refugee organizations have applauded the government’s general approach, but remain skeptical of the execution. “We welcome the intention to give over 100,000 people a regular status,” said Kopp of Pro Asyl. “But we also point out a few problems where we think the legislation needs to be more precise.”

For one thing, Kopp says it’s too tough to force people to try to fulfill the necessary conditions for residency within a year or risk falling back into tolerance status.

“We’d like to see more humanitarian flexibility,” he said. “It could easily be that someone goes out looking for a job but doesn’t succeed because of the economic situation.” He also said he’d like to see the new law include a provision stopping the threat of deportation for anyone eligible for residency under the new scheme.

Integration Commissioner Alabali-Radovan stressed that this current package was just “the first milestone,” and that more plans would be implemented before the end of the year, including measures allowing migrants better access to the job market and naturalization.

Source: Germany: Thousands of immigrants could gain regular status

Filed under Immigration Tagged with ,

The visa hurdle: Why conference applicants from the global south can’t always clear it

2022/07/15 Leave a comment

Of note as Canadian media is covering this issue as well:

Tanaka Chirombo was afraid he wouldn’t make it to the 24th International AIDS Conference taking place in Montreal later this month.

Chirombo lives in Malawi, and his life work revolves around HIV. His interest in the virus began with his father, who delighted him with made-up stories as a boy. His dad contracted HIV but delayed seeking medical help because of the stigma of the disease and the cost of treatment. It progressed into AIDS, and he passed away when Chirombo was 4 years old.

Tanaka Chirombo of Malawi, whose life work revolves around HIV, was at first rejected for a Canadian visa to attend the international AIDS conference in Montreal this month. “The main issue was me coming back from Canada,” he says. “They thought I was going to stay in Canada.” He did find success with a follow-up application.

As Chirombo grew up, he witnessed others in his community die of complications stemming from AIDS. When he was a teenager, he volunteered at a clinic, where he mentored a 10-year-old girl with HIV. He helped her secure treatment, but it came too late and she too passed away.

It’s these issues — of battling stigma and getting people the care and information they need — that are at the heart of Chirombo’s HIV advocacy today. As the board chair of the Global Network of Young People Living with HIV, he works to help young women who are HIV positive by reducing discrimination and improving access to HIV services.

So when this year’s International AIDS Conference was announced, he knew he wanted to be there. “I would love to meet stakeholders in Montreal to be able to get funding to expand our projects,” Chirombo says. In fact, he’s serving as the meeting’s youth representative and is on the organizing committee as a co-chair for the Global Village and Youth Programme Working Group.

But to go to Montreal, he needs a visa. For someone from a low-income country like Malawi, getting permission to travel abroad can be an expensive obstacle course. It ran Chirombo about $1,100. “I spent money for the online application,” he explains, “and then had to book a return flight ticket to South Africa to do the biometrics,” referring to fingerprinting. He sent a copy of his passport and a letter describing the international conferences he’d attended before.

Within two weeks, the answer from the Canadian government arrived. Chirombo’s visa application was denied. “The main issue was me coming back from Canada,” he says. “They thought I was going to stay in Canada.”

The letter he received stated, “I am not satisfied that you will leave Canada at the end of your stay as a temporary resident … based on your personal assets and financial status … the purpose of your visit … [and] your current employment situation.” None of it made sense to him.

“I don’t think I would ever live abroad because I want to be able to change the landscape in my country — the country I love the most,” Chirombo says. “That’s the whole reason I’m doing this sort of work.”

The rejection was really hard on him.

“When I read that letter, I was sad first thing,” he recalls. “I went online, I thought I could write a post to bring out my anger. But then I deleted it. I was like, ‘No, that’s irrational for me to do something like that.’ But basically, I just slept. It was the easiest way to get over the pain of being rejected.”

Since that initial denial, Chirombo submitted a revised visa application. He attached additional bank statements, his return ticket and letters of support “to be able to show my commitment that I’m still going to go back home.”

A couple weeks later, Chirombo heard that his visa had been granted — and just in time since the International AIDS Conference begins on July 29.

Kareem Samsudeen Adebola, an advocate for youth who are HIV positive in Nigeria, was initially rejected in his application for a Canadian visa to attend the upcoming international AIDS conference. Adebola says when he takes note of everyone who’s been rejected for a visa, the feeling can be boiled down to a single word — “inequality.” His second visa application was accepted.

Kareem Samsudeen Adebola

Chirombo’s experience isn’t unique. Kareem Samsudeen Adebola is the deputy national coordinator for the Association of Positive Youth in Lagos, Nigeria, where he works to reduce stigma and provide access to public health services to young people living with HIV. He too lost his father to AIDS-related complications when he was a boy. Adebola has HIV as well and has been on antiretroviral therapy for close to 20 years. He does his advocacy work today in his father’s memory. “I have to fulfill his dreams that AIDS could not allow him to fulfill,” he says.

Like Chirombo, Adebola wants to attend the International AIDS conference in Montreal to connect with scientists in the field and network with global experts. But within a week of submitting his visa application to Canada, it was denied for the same reason as Chirombo’s initial rejection.

Adebola says when he takes note of everyone who’s been rejected, the feeling can be boiled down to a single word — “inequality.” Adebola says that “it saddens my heart when I think about people from countries who can’t attend.” Fortunately, his second visa application was accepted.

Not every visa applicant is as lucky as Chirombo and Adebola. Researchers, scientists and medical professionals from the global south (which encompasses low- and middle-income countries) are among those who simply can’t attend professional meetings abroad because their visas arrive too late or not at all. It’s a problem that many from high-income countries never even think about.

Dr. Ulrick Sidney Kanmounye of Cameroon — currently a research fellow at Geisinger Health System specializing in cerebrovascular neurosurgery — detailed his inability to receive a Schengen visa to travel to Europe and attend the World Health Assembly (the annual meeting of the World Health Organization in 2019 while living in Cameroon. “The truth is that I lost more than just money,” recounts Kanmounye. “I lost faith in those that organize these events in high income countries.”

Dr. Mohamed Bella Jalloh, recalls how in 2018, as a recent medical school graduate, he traveled from Sierra Leone to Côte d’Ivoire to apply for a Belgian visa to attend the InciSioN Global Surgery Symposium. Jalloh was denied for “no definite reason.” He says, “They just sent back my passport without any further explanation.”

In January 2019, Dr. Dian Blandina (currently with the organization People’s Health Movement) received her EU residency card. Two years earlier, when she had only her Indonesian citizenship, she was invited to speak at the International Association of Health Policy meeting in Thessaloniki, Greece. Although her visa was approved, the process was costly and took a month and a half. Blandina nearly missed the conference.

After that, she stopped trying to attend international meetings. “It’s just not worth the trouble for attending just one event,” Blandina says, “especially if I’m not [an] organizer or a presenter. Almost all my colleagues back home feel the same.”

Then there’s Dr. Mehr Muhammad Adeel Riaz. Earlier this year, working as a junior doctor at the Allied Hospital in Faisalabad, Pakistan, he was invited to attend the 75th World Health Assembly in Geneva, Switzerland. “Having the chance to attend and advocate on behalf of my community at this high level [meeting] was a dream come true,” he emailed NPR. He received a scholarship to cover his visa fees, roundtrip airfare, accommodations and food.

But his request for a visa was rejected. According to the Swiss Embassy: “the information submitted regarding the justification for the purpose and conditions of the intended stay was not reliable.” It made Riaz feel as if having a passport from Pakistan was a failing on his part, and he regrets missing the opportunity to meet global health professionals “to increase the visibility of my work as a young global health advocate,” he says.

These types of experiences are discouraging. Dr. Ankit Raj, a junior resident at Sawai Man Singh Medical College in Jaipur, India, says the interview process for a visa feels designed to intimidate. “The questions are highly specific, detailed and often beyond the scope of purpose of visit,” he explains. “The entire process often feels like a criminal interrogation and the applicant ends up feeling guilt ridden toward the end of the interview.”

As for the upcoming International AIDS Conference, organizers are working with the Canadian authorities to clarify what’s needed to avoid visa rejections for global south applicants. And they’re offering scholarships and fee waivers to make it cheaper to attend. If attendees can’t come in person, they can log into the proceedings virtually.

But Madhukar Pai, an epidemiologist at McGill University, says virtual participation is far from ideal. “What happens to all of the side room discussions, the coffee, the chat at the bar at night?,” he asks. “How do you network, make deals, get opportunities, all of those intangible benefits of in-person meetings?”

And this exclusion of people from lower resource countries means, according to Pai, that it’s often attendees from higher income countries who make the decisions that can shape funding and the research landscape. It’s an issue compounded by disparities in COVID vaccination status, especially earlier in the pandemic, that allowed many people from higher income countries to receive two shots and a booster and to travel with ease, while many in low- and middle-income countries struggled to get even a single dose.

“The fact that we left behind people without even the first shot worries me a lot because they will always struggle to go anywhere,” Pai says. In his view, the impact on global health gatherings is profound. “People from the global south might be relegated to a secondary status,” he says. If we’re not careful, he adds that “we will dramatically worsen the inequities already in global health.”

The problem isn’t new, explains Adnan Hyder, vice-chair of the Board of Health Systems Global, a group that promotes health policy. “The historical tendency was always the high-income countries were able to put forth resources to attract those meetings,” he says.

The locations of these gatherings matter. When Kanmounye and a research team from Harvard University’s Program in Global Surgery and Social Change looked at publicly available data, they found that conferences hosted in low- and middle-income countries were more likely to have diverse participants. In addition, “hosting a conference in Latin America, Africa or Asia significantly increased participation of researchers from the region and minimally impacted high-income country attendance,” he says. NPR reached out for confirmation to a few organizations that host global health meetings, but they all replied that they don’t track how many people from low- and middle-income countries are denied visas to attend their conferences.

“Frankly speaking, the decision-making around where to host those meetings was not as sensitive to the concerns that we are talking about today,” says Hyder. “But I think over the past decade or so that has improved. We have a long ways to go, but I think the intention is there for equity.”

He cites the biannual symposium that his organization hosts. In 2018, it was held in Liverpool, and the World Health Organization voiced concerns over colleagues having their visas denied. This fall, it will take place in Bogotá , Colombia.

But if the locations of meetings like these remain largely unchanged, some worry about the voices that won’t be heard. The people whose visas are denied are often from the very countries where many global health concerns are most acute.

“Unless you are fully immersed and living and breathing in a country for years, you will not [know] what lies below, which is so much deeper, more complex,” says Michelle Joseph, an orthopedic surgeon and an instructor in Global Health and Social Medicine at the Harvard Medical School. “You may have theoretical knowledge, you don’t have lived experience. And lived experience takes years and that’s only afforded to those who live and reside and work in that space. And those are the voices that require amplification.”

Voices like Tanaka Chirombo from Malawi. At this point, all that’s left is for his Canadian visa to be printed out, pasted into his passport and returned to him. He leaves for Montreal in less than two weeks.

Source: The visa hurdle: Why conference applicants from the global south can’t always clear it

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Augmenter l’immigration ne réglera pas la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre, maintient Jean Boulet

2022/07/14 Leave a comment

Quebec takes a very different tack than the rest of Canada.

Will provide an opportunity for some interesting comparative analysis on outcomes between the consensus in English Canada in favour of ever increasing immigration and the more restrictive approach of Quebec.

In the longer term, Quebec’s importance in relation to the rest of Canada will continue to decline and at some point, there will likely be less support for maintaining the number of Quebec MPs:

Québec tient coûte que coûte à maintenir ses seuils d’immigration aux niveaux actuels malgré une pénurie de main-d’oeuvre qui n’est pas près de se résorber.

En entrevue bilan avec Le Devoir, le ministre du Travail, de l’Emploi et de la Solidarité sociale justifie l’intention de son gouvernement de maintenir le rythme d’accueil actuel, malgré l’accumulation des postes vacants — on en comptait plus de 224 000 au premier trimestre de 2022. « Moi, j’ai toujours dit : “les seuils ne bougent pas” », répète-t-il.

« On a encore du travail d’intégration, d’amélioration des problématiques de surqualification. […] C’est : “en prendre soin” », ajoute le ministre, en écho au leitmotiv électoral de sa formation politique en 2018.

En mai, le ministre Boulet avait ouvert la porte à réviser à la hausse le plafonnement des entrées migratoires. Une étude du démographe Marc Termote lui recommandait alors d’augmenter les seuils de 8000 nouveaux arrivants en cinq ans. Après avoir qualifié cette analyse de « raisonnée et raisonnable », M. Boulet avait finalement rebroussé chemin sur Twitter.

« Je me suis mal exprimé et j’ai été mal compris lorsque j’ai été questionné par des journalistes. Ce n’est pas acceptable de recevoir 58 000 immigrants chaque année », avait-il écrit.

La conversation sur ces seuils a repris de plus belle cette année. Alors que la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) privilégie le statu quo, le Conseil du patronat du Québec recommande d’accueillir au moins 80 000 immigrants annuellement, et même de « tendre vers » les 100 000. Le Parti libéral du Québec (PLQ) s’est déjà mouillé : un gouvernement piloté par Dominique Anglade irait jusqu’à 70 000 entrées par année en début de mandat.

En matière d’immigration, la CAQ privilégie une renégociation de l’entente Canada-Québec, qui régit le partage des compétences entre les deux ordres de gouvernement. Elle se positionne aussi en faveur du rapatriement des programmes de réunification familiale et de travailleurs étrangers temporaires, parce que le gouvernement fédéral « est incapable de livrer », insiste Jean Boulet.

« Les admissions sont faites par Ottawa, et les seuils ne sont même pas atteints à ce moment-ci », soutient-il. Selon l’élu responsable de la région de la Mauricie, les solutions à la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre se trouvent partout : travailleurs de plus de 65 ans, personnes judiciarisées, personnes en situation de handicap… Il suffit de les attirer avec les bons incitatifs.

Quelques options

Chez les travailleurs expérimentés, soit ceux qui ont passé l’âge de la retraite, la popularité du marché de l’emploi donne confiance à M. Boulet. Ils étaient plus de 194 000 travailleurs de 65 ans et plus le mois dernier, soit 20 000 de plus qu’il y a trois ans. Intrigué par le potentiel de productivité de cette tranche de la population, le ministre n’exclut pas d’agir pour repousser l’âge de la retraite. « On est en réflexion constante », dit-il.

Le ministre Boulet a déjà laissé entendre que la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre était là pour de bon, du moins à moyen terme. En s’appuyant sur les calculs de démographes, il anticipe un « creux historique » en 2030.

« C’est un phénomène qui devient de plus en plus aigu, qui a été accentué par la pandémie. Et ça va continuer », admet-il au téléphone.

L’élu caquiste n’est « pas du tout défaitiste ». « Notre taux d’emploi chez les 15 à 64 ans, il est quand même le plus élevé au Canada », soulève-t-il. Le nombre de prestataires de l’aide sociale s’est d’ailleurs abaissé de 23 % de janvier 2018 à janvier 2022, se réjouit le ministre.

Des enfants derrière la caisse

Une seule chose tracasse Jean Boulet : le recours aux moins de 14 ans sur le marché du travail. La Loi le permet, mais cette tendance s’est trop accélérée au goût du député de Trois-Rivières. « Le travail des jeunes ne doit jamais nuire à la persévérance scolaire. […] Pour moi, je l’ai déjà mentionné, ce n’est pas normal qu’un jeune de 11 ans travaille », lance-t-il.

Québec ne détient pas de statistiques sur l’emploi des plus jeunes. Statistique Canada non plus. Mais M. Boulet constate un rajeunissement du bassin d’employés. « Il y a des cas, par exemple dans des restaurants, où des jeunes de 11 ans peuvent travailler dans des cuisines près d’équipements qui peuvent comporter un certain danger », s’inquiète-t-il.

Pour mieux « encadrer le travail des enfants », le ministre envisage de légiférer, si son parti est reconduit au pouvoir en octobre.

La plateforme caquiste sera rendue publique au cours des mois prochains. Déjà, le PLQ a présenté la sienne, qui prévoit un congé de cotisations au Régime de rentes du Québec pour les 62 ans et des places en services de garde à 8,70 $ « pour tous ».

Québec solidaire (QS), le Parti québécois (PQ) et le Parti conservateur du Québec (PCQ) n’ont pas non plus déposé leur programme électoral. QS s’est toutefois engagé à obliger les entreprises à offrir quatre semaines de vacances par année à leurs employés après un an de services. Le PQ prévoit notamment dans son « projet national » de « réformer le processus de reconnaissance des diplômes ». Le PCQ souhaite, entre autres, revoir à la hausse le crédit d’impôt au prolongement de carrière des travailleurs d’expérience.

Source: Augmenter l’immigration ne réglera pas la pénurie de main-d’oeuvre, maintient Jean Boulet

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Doug Ford wants to combat labour shortages with more immigrants

2022/07/13 Leave a comment

More on Ontario pressure to increase Provincial Nominee Program levels:

Premier Doug Ford plans to press the federal government for immigration rules similar to Quebec’s so Ontario can address labour shortages across the province. 

And in British Columbia, at the summer meeting of the Council of the Federation, he is seeking support from his 12 provincial and territorial leaders to join the call for more choice and flexibility from the federal government — as well as faster processing of workers, which can now take more than two years.

“In the face of a historic labour shortage, we need more skilled workers to help fill the gap here in Ontario and across the country,” Ford said in a statement to the Star. 

“I know the other premiers agree that provinces can’t do this alone. We need the federal government to work with us to tackle the labour shortfall to help ensure our economy remains strong during these challenging times.”

The province and federal government’s agreement on immigration is up for renewal this fall, and Ford is hoping to negotiate a big boost in the number of workers Ontario takes in, as well as more say in the types of job skills they possess. 

Ontario had been hoping to be allocated 18,000 workers via immigration — double the 9,000 initially granted — but received 9,700. 

The province says it has 378,000 job that are unfilled, mainly in health care and construction. 

It also wants the wait time for processing workers given it currently takes about 26 months, with “express” taking 18 months. 

Following the June 2 election, Ontario Labour Minister Monte McNaughton — who saw immigration added to his portfolio when he was reappointed to cabinet — said the “Ontario immigrant nominee program” only gives the province say over 9,000 newcomers when 125,000 arrive here every year, “which is a very small percentage of what we are getting.”

He said he planned to reach out to the federal government “in short order to lay the groundwork” to renegotiate the Ontario-Canada immigrant agreement. 

“Quite frankly. I’d like to see a Quebec-style immigration system here in Ontario where we have more of a say in the immigrants that we select to fill these jobs and build stronger communities,” McNaughton said, adding Quebec selects about 90 per cent of economic immigrants and “I think Ontario deserves to have a system similar to them.”

Aspiring federal Conservative leader and former Quebec premier Jean Charest said on social media that he’s “on board” with Ontario seeking a bigger say in economic immigration.

“To bring back the Canadian dream of having an affordable home, and improving access to health care, we need more skilled workers,” he tweeted. “I will give provinces like Ontario the ability to bring in more folks to solve their labour shortage.”

Federal NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said a revamp of immigration rules could help ease the nursing shortage, saying that “status in Canada is the only barrier to becoming certified” for thousands across the country. 

Not being a permanent resident “precludes them from being qualified to work … speeding up that process alone” could work. 

He said the federal government has responsibility for immigration and should continue that, but added “it’s always important to heed concerns being raised by provinces because they know what in particular is needed.”

Source: Doug Ford wants to combat labour shortages with more immigrants

Filed under Immigration Tagged with

Coy: Why So Many Children of Immigrants Rise to the Top

2022/07/12 Leave a comment

More commentary on Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success, by Ran Abramitzky of Stanford and Leah Boustan of Princeton:

The lack of a shared set of facts about immigration makes it easy for accusatory and often false messages to echo loudly in the run-up to the midterm elections. J.D. Vance, a leading Republican candidate for Ohio’s open Senate seat, claimed in a recent advertisement that “Joe Biden’s open border is killing Ohioans, with more illegal drugs and more Democrat voters pouring into this country.” Representative Paul Gosar of Arizona has describedimmigration as “full scale invasion.” Tucker Carlson of Fox News told a guest on his show in 2017: “Go to Lowell, Mass., or Lewiston, Maine, or any place where large numbers of immigrants have been moved into a poor community, and it hasn’t become richer. It’s become poorer. That’s real.”

A new book, “Streets of Gold: America’s Untold Story of Immigrant Success,” by two economists, Ran Abramitzky of Stanford and Leah Boustan of Princeton, should undercut some of the fearmongering. They linked census records to pull together what they call “the first set of truly big data about immigration.”

Using the data set, Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan were able to compare the income trajectories of immigrants’ children with those of people whose parents were born in the United States. The economists found that on average, the children of immigrants were exceptionally good at moving up the economic ladder.

Immigrants and their children are assimilating into the United States as quickly now as in the past, the economists found. That’s in line with recent research into the effects of immigration. While “first-generation immigrants are more costly to governments than are the native-born,” according to a 2017 report by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, the “second generation are among the strongest fiscal and economic contributors in the U.S.”

Second-generation-immigrant success stories have long been a part of America’s history. Looking at census records from 1880, the researchers found that men whose fathers were low-income immigrants made more money as adults than the sons of low-income men born in the United States. (They focused on sons because it was harder to track women from one census to the next, since so many adopted their husbands’ names at marriage.) Because of privacy restrictions, they had access to individual data only through the 1940 census. They used other sources for subsequent years.

Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan observed the same pattern a century later. Children born around 1980 to men from Mexico, India, Brazil and almost every other country outearned the children of U.S.-born men.

“America really does have golden streets that allow immigrants to quickly make more than they could have earned at home,” they write. But, they add, “moving up the economic ladder in America — and catching up to the U.S.-born — takes time.”

Once Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan found abundant evidence of second-generation immigrants’ upward mobility, they tried to figure out why those children did so well.

They arrived at two answers. First, the children had an easy time outdoing parents whose careers were inhibited by poor language skills or a lack of professional credentials. The classic example is an immigrant doctor who winds up driving a cab in the United States.

Second, immigrants tended to settle in parts of the country experiencing strong job growth. That gave them an edge over native-born Americans who were firmly rooted in places with faltering economies. Immigrants are good at doing something difficult: leaving behind relatives, friends and the familiarity of home in search of prosperity. The economists found that native-born Americans who do what immigrants do — move toward opportunity — have children who are just as upwardly mobile as the children of immigrants.

Looking at maps of where immigrants have settled at different points in time, it’s clear that those regions were also areas of productivity and economic growth. In 1910, European immigrants went to work in the factories of the Midwest and New England. In 1980, immigrants from elsewhere in the Americas filled jobs in rapidly growing parts of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, California and Florida.

If immigrants are so upwardly mobile, why doesn’t it seem that way? One reason is that there are more newcomers than there have been in decades and most haven’t had time yet to get ahead. The share of foreign-born people in the United States is back to the levels of the first two decades of the 20th century.

Another reason is that most immigrants are arriving well below native-born Americans socioeconomically. They are more likely, Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan found, than immigrants of the past to come from countries that are significantly poorer than the United States, including El Salvador, India and Vietnam. But it’s those immigrants who start at the bottom who ascend the most. In contrast, affluent, educated immigrants tend to be the least upwardly mobile, simply because they’re already at or near the top.

Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan dispute the argument that immigrants frequently take jobs from native-born Americans. Less skilled immigrants gravitate toward jobs for which there is relatively little competition from native-born Americans, such as picking crops, while highly skilled immigrants often create more jobs for native-born Americans by starting businesses and inventing things, they write.

The research of Mr. Abramitzky and Ms. Boustan has made headlines before, but in their new book they broaden and deepen the narrative with excerpts from diaries and oral histories of immigrants. Signe Tornbloom, 18, a daughter of hardscrabble Swedish farmers, immigrated alone in 1916 after receiving a letter that said, more or less: “Well, you’d better come over here. Everything is much better than it is at home.”

The notion that immigrants have become a permanent underclass, isolated from the American mainstream, is popular among immigration restrictionists — as well as among some pro-immigration groups that say immigrants need more help to break out of poverty. The truth is that today’s immigrants are advancing just as swiftly as those of the past. “The American dream,” Mr. Abramitzky said in an interview, “is just as alive now as it was a century ago.”

Source: Why So Many Children of Immigrants Rise to the Top

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Refugee sponsor groups accuse Ottawa of ‘breach of agreement’ as families wait to reunite

2022/07/12 Leave a comment

Another example of IRCC operational difficulties? The Mennonites are one of the easiest and most reasonable groups to work with:

More than 100 groups across Canada that have formal agreements with Ottawa to privately sponsor refugees are accusing the federal government of breaching their agreements, leaving them unable to help vulnerable people.

These groups, known as Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAHs), are religious, humanitarian, or community organizations that assume the full financial, legal and logistical obligations related to settling refugees in Canada. They often work with smaller community groups that handle the fundraising and arrange, among other things, housing, schools, and jobs.

Every year, SAHs are each allotted a certain number of refugees — for a combined total of roughly 10,000 to 12,000 — for whom they can submit applications to Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada, which then carries out interviews, medical check-ups, and security clearance.

The Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders Association (SAH Council) wrote a letter to the federal minister, Shawn Fraser, on June 20 to complain that Ottawa still hasn’t given its members their annual allotment of sponsorship spaces, which it says is “a breach of the Sponsorship Agreement.” It’s calling for the immediate release of 2022 allocations.

“SAH’s are facing a quickly diminishing window of time to submit new sponsorship applications within this calendar year,” the Council said, adding that it’s difficult to plan or confirm support to vulnerable refugee families.

“It’s frustrating,” said Mark Bigland-Pritchard, a migration and resettlement coordinator for the Mennonite Central Committee (MCC), a faith-based agency that’s had a sponsorship agreement with Ottawa for about 40 years.

“The bulk of our allocation, we just cannot submit until the time comes that they permit us to.”

These delays endanger thousands of people who are facing persecution or living in dangerous places, he said.

Families separated, refugees at risk

Three applications that are still sitting on his desk, ready to be submitted, belong to nine-year-old Adnan Kharsa’s parents and sister. As CBC News reported in April, the Syrian boy has been separated from his family, who are in Turkey, for five years. He made it to Saskatoon with his grandmother and uncle as a privately-sponsored refugee last year.

Adnan’s aunt, Doha Kharsa, who lives in Saskatoon, formed a sponsorship group in the community and raised $40,000 to privately sponsor Adnan’s parents and sister. Then, she teamed up with MCC, as the sponsorship agreement holder, to submit their applications as part of its 2022 allotment.

Bigland-Pritchard says MCC is normally allotted about 400 spaces a year, and those numbers are usually confirmed in February. That didn’t happen this year. In May, the federal government allowed each sponsorship agreement holder in Canada to submit 25 applications.

Kharsa was disappointed to learn Ottawa hasn’t accepted more applications, including hers.

“It’s shocking,” she said. “I don’t know how to tell my mom, or even Adnan, or even my brother in Turkey about this.”

“I don’t understand why. The money is there. The applications are ready to go. So why the delay?”

In the letter to Fraser, the SAH Council said it “acknowledged the tremendous pressure IRCC currently faces in its response to multiple global crises.” It said IRCC had indicated to SAH Council that the delay is, in part, due to what it called “processing challenges” at the Resettlement Operations Centre in Ottawa.

In a statement to CBC News, IRCC did not offer an explanation for the delays.

“The Department is actively working to release the remaining 2022 allocations to SAHs,” said the statement attributed to a spokesperson for Fraser.

“We can confirm that we received a letter from the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders (SAH) Association and will be responding directly to address their concerns. We look forward to continuing our working relationship with the Canadian Refugee Sponsorship Agreement Holders.”

2-3 year wait after application goes in

Bigland-Pritchard said it’s critical to resume steady sponsorship submissions because getting the application into the system is only the first step.

After that, the processing time for MCC’s privately-sponsored refugees is about two to three years. For example, MCC is still waiting for half of the refugees they applied for in 2019 to arrive in Canada, and most of the people they applied for in 2020 haven’t arrived.

Source: Refugee sponsor groups accuse Ottawa of ‘breach of agreement’ as families wait to reunite

Filed under Immigration, Refugees Tagged with , ,

Chouinard: Demandeurs d’asile largués [childcare subsidies]

2022/07/12 Leave a comment

Of note:

La décision de Québec de porter en appel un jugement qui redonnait enfin aux demandeurs d’asile le droit aux garderies subventionnées, et ce, après quatre ans d’interdit, traduit une politique migratoire insensible à la vulnérabilité des citoyens en attente d’un statut. Les organismes de défense des droits de ces demandeurs, qui ont un permis de travail mais ne peuvent l’utiliser faute de moyens, ont raison d’être exaspérés.

Ce dossier à la fois complexe et d’une simplicité désarmante nourrit les manchettes depuis quatre ans. En avril 2018, le gouvernement libéral de Philippe Couillard a décidé sans crier gare de réinterpréter l’article 3 du Règlement sur la contribution gratuite de la Loi sur les services de garde éducatifs à l’enfance. Alors que cet article donnait jusque-là accès aux garderies à 8,70 $ par jour à tout titulaire d’un « permis de travail et [qui] séjourne au Québec principalement afin d’y travailler », une nouvelle lecture de cet article a exclu les demandeurs d’asile, qu’on a jugés présents au Québec pas « principalement » pour travailler. Du jour au lendemain, cette catégorie de migrants s’est donc retrouvée privée d’accès aux services de garde subventionnés, et ce, malgré le fait qu’ils détenaient un permis de travail.

En prenant le pouvoir en 2018, la Coalition avenir Québec (CAQ) n’a pas jugé bon d’annuler la décision du précédent gouvernement, qui avait soulevé l’ire de tous les groupes de défense des droits des réfugiés et des demandeurs d’asile. L’accès à la garderie subventionnée revêt une importance capitale dans la vie de personnes nouvellement arrivées au Québec et qui désirent s’intégrer, travailler et apprendre le français. Pour les enfants, cet accès est capital. Même les arguments économiques ne tiennent pas la route pour justifier cet entêtement obscur de Québec à exclure ce groupe de citoyens de l’accès à la garderie, car, faute de moyens financiers, plusieurs mères doivent renoncer à travailler, et ce, même si elles détiennent un permis de travail. En pleine pénurie de main-d’oeuvre, c’est d’une absurdité sans nom.

Les médias ont rapporté nombre d’histoires invraisemblables : des mères célibataires forcées de se rabattre sur l’aide sociale et de refuser nombre d’offres d’emploi, car le prix d’une garderie privée — environ 50 $ par jour, contre 8,70 $ dans les garderies soutenues par Québec — équivalait littéralement au montant mensuel de leur loyer. Alors que les pénuries de main-d’oeuvre dans nombre de secteurs cruciaux sont en train de créer un Québec vivant sur le mode gruyère, avec des trous béants dans son offre de services essentiels, on tournerait le dos à un groupe de travailleurs prêts à s’intégrer dans la société québécoise par le truchement du travail ?

Québec prétexte le fort afflux de migrants, les listes d’attente pour les garderies subventionnées et les délais d’attente déraisonnables imposés par le fédéral pour justifier son refus de relire avec justesse l’article 3 du Règlement ; mais la vérité est qu’il ajoute lui-même des embûches sur la route déjà tortueuse de l’intégration des migrants. En outre, et cela est une véritable disgrâce pour un gouvernement dont le slogan de la dernière campagne électorale dans le dossier d’immigration était « en prendre moins, mais en prendre soin », l’interprétation de la CAQ prend pour cible un groupe vulnérable. C’est en totale contradiction avec toutes les politiques humanitaires de soutien aux demandeurs d’asile.

Il a donc fallu se tourner vers les tribunaux pour savoir si Québec avait erré en décidant de proposer une nouvelle lecture de l’article 3. Fin mai dernier, le juge Marc St-Pierre, de la Cour supérieure, a décrété que oui. « [Le Tribunal] déclare que l’article 3 du Règlement sur la contribution réduite a été adopté sans habilitation législative et est par conséquent ultra vires et nul », a-t-il conclu, ce qui a provoqué un immense soulagement du côté des organismes qui s’agitaient depuis quatre ans pour ce revirement de situation. La victoire fut de courte durée, car le 7 juillet dernier, Québec a décidé d’en appeler de la décision. C’est navrant.

À l’approche d’un 3e Sommet de l’immigration, qui doit normalement se tenir en novembre prochain, il serait intéressant de valider la cohérence de l’ensemble des politiques d’immigration et des pratiques de terrain, car l’ensemble de l’oeuvre laisse poindre nombre de ratés et d’invraisemblances qui nuisent aux objectifs économiques et aux politiques sociales du Québec. On a fait grand cas des seuils d’immigration, résumant le dossier à une affaire de chiffres, alors que le coeur du travail se trouve dans l’intégration — ratée — de ceux qui y sont.

La souque-à-la-corde qui se joue entre Ottawa et Québec autour de ce dossier crucial ne vient d’aucune manière donner de l’air au Québec, il faut le rappeler. Ottawa est empêtré dans une lourdeur administrative et des délais qui font honte, et dont pâtit le Québec. Mais celui-ci doit honorer ses promesses envers les personnes à qui il ouvre sa porte et leur permettre d’accéder de la manière la plus rapide et la plus digne au marché de l’emploi.

Source: Demandeurs d’asile largués

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

Saunders: How the pandemic may have made government agencies better at their jobs

2022/07/11 Leave a comment

Ironic timing, given that large immigration and passport backlogs in Canada. That being said, IRCC is moving on IT and more online services.

But perhaps MPI should have accompanied this analysis with a snapshot on backlogs in all the countries surveyed:

Chaos descended on governments more than two years ago, when the COVID-19 pandemic forced millions of frontline public-service workers and back-office bureaucrats to abandon their offices, stop meeting with clients and managing lineups, and switch quickly to improvised digital services in departments that in many cases had barely moved beyond the fax machine.

Unsurprisingly, some departments became frozen and dysfunctional, leaving a legacy of perpetual waiting lists, undelivered projects and unanswered calls. But an unexpected consequence of the global crisis was that some branches of government actually sharply improved their quality of service, in terms of both timeliness of delivery and effectiveness of results. The virus forced transformations, in many places, that should have happened decades ago.

Nowhere is this more apparent than in the way governments have changed how they deal with the process of immigration, settlement and the pathway to citizenship. If you’ve ever emigrated to new country, you know it involves years of day-long waits at government offices, repeat trips to bring in the proper documents, hard-to-arrange appointments with officials, forms that must be handled in person and often years of non-optional classes in language and citizenship. Even for a middle-class immigrant with resources, it’s a complex, disruptive process that can go on for years.

But the pandemic had a striking and often overwhelmingly positive effect on the Western world’s immigration bureaucracies. That’s made apparent in a new study, “The COVID-19 Catalyst,” by Jasmijn Slootjes of the Brussels-based Migration Policy Institute Europe, in which her team looked at the immigration bureaucracies of 14 countries, including Canada’s.

Pretty much every developed country faced twin problems during the pandemic. One, restricted travel and sometimes-closed borders made it very hard to bring in the people who were needed to keep the economy rolling, especially in suddenly crucial fields such as healthcare, eldercare and food production. And two, an already undersized bureaucracy was now working from home and unable to operate service desks, offices and classrooms.

Three important things happened, according to Ms. Slootjes.

First, the entire landing, settlement, integration and naturalization process was moved online. While this created some disadvantages – immigrants often value in-person meetings and the networking opportunities that come with them – these, the researchers were surprised to find, were usually far outweighed by the benefits, which allowed more people to be reached, far more quickly and effectively, across a wider geography and with less inconvenience.

This was particularly true for immigrant women and members of vulnerable refugee communities, who, for various reasons, previously had trouble making in-person meetings during business hours but now could be reached directly, in large numbers. Some countries did this immediately: Germany spent €40-million in 2020 developing online language-oriented integration classes.

Of course, some immigrants and especially refugee claimants have trouble finding internet connections and smart devices. But the speed with which this problem was solved surprised everyone. In the Netherlands, a major new program brought tech companies together with government to give devices to more than 12,000 people. Canada’s tech-donation schemes became far more active, and Ottawa launched a popular digital-literacy program for immigrants during the pandemic.

Second, national governments were forced to work with outside organizations and local governments, who actually have more front-line knowledge. (That’s the paradox of immigration: It’s a national policy area that manifests itself almost entirely at the municipal level.) “In Canada, Finland, Flanders and France, governments were forced to reach out to colleagues in other policy areas to address newly arising issues,” Ms. Slootjes writes

Many countries decided to follow the decentralization lead of Canada, whose settlement and integration services are mostly delivered not by the federal public service but by 500 not-for-profit institutions and local-government offices whose employees and volunteers are able to work longer and more flexible hours, adapt more quickly and work in more trusted relationships with clients, at lower cost.

And third, the pandemic forced government agencies to rethink their primary missions – and sometimes, their entire purpose.

The concept of “integration,” which in Europe had often meant language and “values” education, was quickly redefined around its more important meaning: inclusion in the country’s economy, education and housing systems.

Immigration agencies, which had previously seen themselves as gatekeepers that slowly filtered in the more desirable and well-off people from lists of applicants, suddenly found “a renewed appreciation of low-skilled migrant workers in essential roles,” and often invested in chartered flights and instant naturalization invitations in order to fill the economy’s yawning gaps with such people.

Countries that undertook this rethink are, in this year of overheated recovery, typically having less difficulty with shortages and inflation than countries that stuck to their old ways. And, thanks to the wholesale reinvention of their immigration bureaucracy, they’ve been able to respond better – and with less hassle or controversy – to the millions of Ukrainian refugees they now face.

Few of them will publicly credit a deadly pandemic with making them better at their jobs. But they could.

Source: How the pandemic may have made government agencies better at their jobs

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

Germany eases path to permanent residency for migrants

2022/07/08 Leave a comment

Of note, another nail in the coffin of the guest worker approach:

Tens of thousands of migrants, who have been living in Germany for years without long-lasting permission to remain in the country, will be eligible for permanent residency after the government approved a new migration bill Wednesday.

The new regulation, endorsed by the Cabinet, applies to about 136,000 people who have lived in Germany for at least five years by Jan. 1, 2022.

Those who qualify can first apply for a one-year residency status and subsequently apply for permanent residency in Germany. They must earn enough money to make an independent living in the country, speak German and prove that they are “well integrated” into society.

Those under the age of 27 can already apply for a path to permanent residency in Germany after having lived in the country for three years.

“We want people who are well integrated to have good opportunities in our country,” Interior Minister Nancy Faeser told reporters. “In this way, we also put an end to bureaucracy and uncertainty for people who have already become part of our society.”

The new migration regulation will also make it easier for asylum-seekers to learn German — so far only those with a realistic chance of receiving asylum in the country were eligible for language classes — with all asylum applicants getting the chance to enroll in classes.

For skilled laborers, such as information technology specialists and others that hold professions that are desperately needed in Germany, the new regulation will allow that they can move to Germany together with their families right away, which wasn’t possible before. Family members don’t need to have any language skills before moving to the country.

“We need to attract skilled workers more quickly. We urgently need them in many sectors,” Faeser said. “We want skilled workers to come to Germany very quickly and gain a foothold here.”

The bill will also make it easier to deport criminals, includes extending detention pending deportation for certain offenders from three months to a maximum of six months. The extension is intended to give authorities more time to prepare for deportation, such as clarifying identity, obtaining missing papers and organizing a seat on an airplane, German news agency dpa reported.

“In the future, it will be easier to revoke the right of residence of criminals,” Faeser said. “For offenders, we will make it easier to order detention pending deportation, thus preventing offenders who are obliged to leave the country from going into hiding before being deported.”

Source: Germany eases path to permanent residency for migrants

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , ,

LILLEY: Feds allow illegal immigration to flourish while the legal system fails

2022/07/07 Leave a comment

Apples and oranges comparison between irregular arrivals and those who come through the regular immigration processes but does highlight the backlogs and the damage to trust in and credibility of government:

Canada has long had an immigration system that worked — one that we could be proud of — but right now, no one can say that. Like so many government services these days, the immigration system simply isn’t working like it should.

Now we face an incredible backlog for legal immigration while people stream across the border illegally at will, something that’s relatively new in this country.

Unlike in the United States, immigration has never been a political hot potato thrown around between the two main parties.

There have been differences throughout the years, with Liberals tending to favour increases in family reunification, while the Conservatives have placed an emphasis on economic migration. Both main parties have supported high levels of newcomers to this country.

I was born in this country, but only three years after my parents immigrated. That process, according to my mother, took only a few months.

But now, it’s too often taking years for people simply to have their application processed under what are called “express” conditions.

Right now, there is a backlog of more than 2.4 million applications, an increase of more than a 250,000 from just a couple of months ago. That’s an untenable position for our system to be in and a hopeless one for those waiting for word on whether they can come to Canada.

According to the federal government’s website, it takes 42 months to process the application of someone coming in under the federal skilled trade program. That works out to three years and six months just to have your application processed.

Who would want to wait that long?

The Quebec business class program takes 63 months to process applications, while the provincial nominee program “express” track takes 21 months. On what planet is 21 months processing time considered express?

It takes almost two years to sponsor a spouse and just shy of three years to sponsor your parents.

Meanwhile, anyone willing to take a flight to JFK in New York City and then make their way to Roxham Road in Quebec can simply walk across the border and be welcomed to Canada. The number of people crossing at Roxham Road has far surpassed pre-pandemic levels.

After dropping from 1,500 to 2,000 per month to just a few dozen a month during the pandemic, the numbers are now about double. For example, the 3,449 people who crossed illegally this past May is double the previous high for that month in 2018.

We are now seeing higher numbers than ever before enter Canada illegally, while our legal immigration system can’t process people.

Quebec Premier Francois Legault has called for the Roxham Road crossing to be closed, saying his province’s social services are being strained by a lack of federal action. Legault has rightly pointed out that many of those crossing aren’t refugees, they are economic migrants.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in response that closing the crossing won’t stop people crossing illegally, and instead has now started to transfer people to Ottawa and Niagara Falls.

All of this undermines faith in and support for our immigration system as a whole. How can Canadians, or those hoping to become Canadians, have faith in a system that can’t process applicants following the rules but can constantly expand for those going around the rules?

Like passports, customs and airport screening, the immigration department is another example of the federal government not being able to get the basics right.

If the minister can’t fix this, maybe he should look for applicants in that backlog who can and step aside.

Source: LILLEY: Feds allow illegal immigration to flourish while the legal system fails

Filed under Immigration Tagged with , , ,

← Older posts

Newer posts →